ISR-Research Associate - Computational PDRA

Job title:                   PDRA Research Associate in Computational Rheology

Annual Salary:          Equivalent to US$34,000 – US$46,000 (or ￡28,000 - ￡37,000) dependent on relevant research experience

Start/duration:         Tenable from 1^st April 2018 for up to three years

Probation period:    6 months

Based at:                  Institute for Systems Rheology (ISR), the Advanced Institute of Engineering Science for Intelligent Manufacturing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, P. R. China

Responsible to:       Professor Tim Phillips at Cardiff University, UK and Professor Xue-Feng Yuan at Guangzhou University

Project Description

Experimental evidence on the intriguing flow phenomena of polymer solutions in microfluidics attracts enormous attention. For example, turbulence-like instabilities of polymer solutions have been observed at moderate Re number but high Deborah (De) number flow regimes. A quantitative understanding of these nonlinear flow phenomena is of great significance to many industrial sectors involving rheology of complex fluids in microscopic flow, such as inkjet printing/direct-writing and enhanced oil recovery in porous media, at typical deformation rate of 106 s-1 or higher. This project will develop a state-of-the-art simulation technique, based on a discrete Boltzmann (DB) kinetic model for multiple scale modelling of polymer solutions in ink-jet flow geometries. Macroscopic hydrodynamics is directly coupled with full chain dynamics of polymers through molecular kinetic models. The proposed multiple scale computational method will be validated by studying benchmark flow problems in highly nonlinear flow regimes and by critical comparison between numerical results and experimental data.

Key Responsibilities

A successful candidate will conduct the computational part of the project with specific tasks including: 1) to formulate suitable constitutive model for extracting the material functions of the polymer solutions from the rheometric characterizations; 2) to develop a micro- and macro-coupling computational platform for modeling nonlinear dynamics of polymer solutions in ink-jet flow and to validate the model against experimental data; 3) work with experimental PDRA on construction of a common web-database to integrate multiple scale experimental and computational data for correlation analysis.

A successful candidate should have a PhD or equivalent in computational rheology/fluid dynamics or computational physics. In-depth knowledge in soft matter physics, rheology of complex fluids, constitutive modeling and computational fluid dynamics, C++ programming are essential. Experience in the lattice Boltzmann method and extra-large scale parallel computing are advantageous. You should be capable of working under your own initiative and with a multidisciplinary research team, of presenting your work to our industrial partners and at international conferences, so excellent communication and organizational skills are also required.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Tim Phillips (email: PhillipsTN@cardiff.ac.uk) or Prof Xue-Feng Yuan (email: xue-feng.yuan@gzhu.edu.cn).

Closing date:  30 June 2018